


Running Back To You

by blahdeblahdeblah



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bittersweet, Clexa Week 2021, F/F, clexaweek 2021 day 3, parkrun, past relationship breakup, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blahdeblahdeblah/pseuds/blahdeblahdeblah
Summary: Clarke Griffin knows that the stupidest five-word sentence she’s ever spoken was “we should take a break.”They met in college, fell in love and went out into the world together. But you know that story.Ten years after Clarke ended their relationship, an attempt at a new life and a Saturday morning run bring her into contact with Lexa again. Can two people who were once so close ever forget the mistakes of the past?(For Clexa Week 2021 Day 3: Reunited)
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 11
Kudos: 141
Collections: Clexaweek2021





	Running Back To You

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a quick idea and an experiment in writing in a different style, it turned into something much longer than I expected and still feels like part of something bigger. I also wanted to write a story that featured Parkrun (https://www.parkrun.com/), because I'm missing that after almost a year of this pandemic. 
> 
> Content warning: Contains a minor injury to a child and resulting medical treatment, not intensely described.

Lexa’s midway through her stretches when she hears a voice she hasn’t heard in years.

“…cannot believe you’ve got me up at this time on a Saturday, and to run!”

She straightens up, looking around her. There’s enough people milling around and chatting that it could have come from anywhere and the start area is already getting crowded with people, but she knows that was definitely her voice. Lexa tells herself that pushing up onto her toes is for a calf stretch and it’s not to get a better vantage point to scan for blonde hair in the crowd. She spots her almost immediately, talking with Raven and Octavia, close enough for Lexa to hear and recognise their voices, far enough and with enough people between them that there’s no way she can just say a casual “hi”, even if she wanted to.

She’s been a regular at Polis Parkrun since it started a few years ago. Every Saturday morning, like an alarm clock, it’s a reminder that work is over for forty-eight hours and the weekend has begun. The routine around them might have changed – Costia used to come along with Aden to watch and cheer her on, now she turns up with him at the end for the handover when it’s Lexa’s turn to have him – but the weekly runs give her something to focus on and the feeling of being part of something, even if she doesn’t know much about her fellow runners beyond the occasional first name and how fast they can go.

She used to know – or thought she knew – everything about Clarke Griffin, including that she was adamant that keeping the bed warm was a much better use of her time than joining Lexa on one of her morning runs.

* * *

Clarke Griffin knows that the stupidest five-word sentence she’s ever spoken was “we should take a break” and now she’s very acutely conscious that the person she said those five words to ten years ago is not only closer to her than she’s been at any time since then, but is also looking far too distracting as she runs through a series of stretches.

(The second stupidest five word sentence she’s uttered was the “Is it Munchausen’s by proxy?” that came out once during rounds when her sleep-addled brain jumped straight past Meniere’s to the one interesting thing she’d discovered in her Psych reading. Her stupidest one and two-word sentences will always be the “Yes” and “I do” she said to Finn.)

It’s not that it’s a surprise to her. Raven and Octavia warned her that Lexa was a regular here when she’d suggested coming with them and she’d brushed it off as ancient history. She’d featured much more in their conversations as the focus of Octavia’s quest to finish ahead of her just once to prove she was back to her pre-pregnancy level of fitness than she had as Clarke’s ex.

Clarke suspects that’s because her friends still think their breakup was mutual and amicable, not Clarke blowing the whole relationship up because she couldn’t see any way round their immediate problem. Being together as undergrads at the same college was easy, keeping that going while she was in med school and Lexa was in law school at opposite ends of the country was not.

Today is not a day for thinking about the past, though. This is all part of the new start she’s promised herself. She’s got a new job as head of the ER at Polis Hospital, and alongside that she’s vowed to keep herself healthy. It’s only a 5K run, and despite her protests she’s sure that’s something she can definitely do.

* * *

It’s not a race. Lexa knows that. There’s just a list of times afterward. with no prizes or accolades, but Lexa won’t deny that she gets a thrill from seeing how many times she’s been the first finisher. She uses the minutes before they start to make herself forget Clarke and focus on getting near the front at the start so she won’t be held up by slower runners. Which means she ends up standing next to Octavia and looking at Raven, stopwatch in hand, ready as ever to announce the start.

They’re definitely in the group of people she knows enough here to say hi to, and it feels like they should be more, but they were always Clarke’s friends before they’d even met, and through no fault of their own that made them reminders of her when she needed distance.

(What she really needed were answers, but none of those were coming)

So by the time the Parkrun had started, the woman who organised it and the one who could beat her some weeks had become people she knew and recognised, people she could exchange pleasantries with, not ones she could ask if they really were here today with the girl she’d once thought she’d send the rest of her life with.

Lexa lets herself run instead, focusing on the rhythm of her steps and the regularity of her breathing, clearing her mind of anything but the current moment. She knows the course so well by now she could probably run it blindfolded, and she knows when to ease off and when to push on the ups and downs, and when to relax and stretch out her stride on the long flat out and back section by the river. The section where the run back is on the same path as the slower runners heading out, which means she sees Clarke moving at a steady pace but breathing hard, face flushed with exertion, looking ahead with a flicker of recognition and a half-smile as they sweep past each other, which triggers a whole flood of memories that almost distract her from noticing that Octavia’s moved past her.

Lexa tracks her round the rest of the course, but there’s something off with her today as Octavia keeps pulling further and further away from her and by the time they reach the finish straight even Lexa’s hardest kick isn’t enough to close it down. She congratulates her when they both slow up after the line, but gabbles out a “sorry, have to go” when it looks like she might want to say something more.

* * *

Clarke is busy realising that the few jogs she’s done in the area around her new apartment have not prepared her for this. She’s wondering just what she’s going to say if they end up rushing her to her own ER when spots Lexa running down the path towards her, somehow looking even better in her running gear than she did when Clarke used to watch her running laps of their college campus. It’s the first time they’ve actually looked at each other in what feels like forever, and she tries to block out the feeling of her screaming thigh muscles and rivers of sweat flowing off her to acknowledge her, but Lexa’s pace is so fast, she doesn’t think she’s manage more than a manic leer by the time she’s past her.

Now she realises she can’t drop out of this. She’s sure Lexa’s long since moved on from her and the way she ended things and if she ever thinks of Clarke it’s to curse her, but finishing this will be a sign to her and to everyone that Clarke is serious about this being a new start and a different life. She’s here to leave behind everything she was in Arkadia, all the mistakes and bad decisions she’s made over the last decade. If she could rewind that time she’d see her mother’s offer to pay her tuition if she’d just come to a med school closer to home as the trap it was, but no matter how many times she wishes for that to happen, it never does.

As she runs, it’s not fast, it’s not comfortable and it’s certainly not pretty, but she makes it round and somehow manages to speed up when she sees Raven and Octavia at the line, cheering her in. They’re still there when she’s finally got her breath back and is capable of speaking a few words and thanking Octavia for the water bottle she thrusts at her. There’s plenty of other people still hanging around after the run is over, keeping the coffee cart busy and even though she knows she shouldn’t be looking for her, she’s disappointed when she notices Lexa isn’t one of them.

“It’ll be easier next time.” Octavia says to her, and Clarke really hopes she’s right.

* * *

For the next week, Lexa can’t work out if it’s seeing Clarke again or being beaten by Octavia that bothers her most, or if both of them are just too interconnected to be treated as single problems. Sure, their breakup was as traumatic as it was unexpected, but she eventually moved on from it and met Costia and their relationship was good and strong and solid right up until the point when it wasn’t, but Clarke was not one of the things that had ended her marriage.

Now those memories are occupying too much of her time. They’d felt so strong together that two years of being long-distance felt like it should have been easy for them to deal with, but they hadn’t even made it to three months before Clarke dropped her bombshell. They’d had enough mutual friends for Lexa to hear that she’d got married – and, she assumed, for Clarke to hear the same about her – but the pangs that had caused had been for the dreams her younger self had had, not a wish to change what she had by then.

So why does she keep wondering what that nervous looking half-smile meant?

* * *

Clarke hadn’t even thought about Lexa still being in Polis when she’d taken the job. She’d known there’d be memories of college all around it, and so many of those involved her, but the main attraction had been that it was a good job and one that was far away from her ex-husband’s lies and her mother’s questions about just why she couldn’t forgive him and get on with producing grandchildren. It was only after she was apartment-hunting that she wondered if she was still there or whether their paths would cross and before she’d signed the contract for her new place she’d made sure to check no one with the surname Woods lived in the building, just in case the universe decided it wanted to mess with her.

Now, though, bumping into Lexa in the car park or on the stairs and discovering they were neighbours feels like it would be a lot less humiliating and embarrassing than seeing her on another sweat-soaked Saturday morning run. Her legs have spent most of the past week reminding her of just how long its been since she did regular exercise and the adrenalin rush of newness that got her round the first time doesn’t appear to be reappearing this time.

But she manages what she thinks is a simple nod of recognition to her ex this time, then concentrates on getting to the finish where she’s sure Raven is lying when she says she’s faster than last week. This time she does see Lexa, but before she’s recovered enough to start thinking about whether saying hello is a good idea or a terrible one, she’s watching as a young boy runs toward her calling out “Ma!” as he jumps into her arms, and then Lexa’s talking to the woman whose hand he was holding before they all head off in the same direction.

She tells herself it’s good that at least one of them is happy.

* * *

Aden’s squirreling in her arms and trying to tell her everything he’s done for the last week while she’s wondering just how he’s got to be so big, and Costia’s talking about something and she’s still buzzing from the run so absolutely none of is lodging anywhere in her head and –

“I said, do you still have your keys for the house?”

“Aden? Can you shush a minute? I need to talk to Mom.” Lexa says, “Yes, of course I do. Why?”

“Because we’re not back till Wednesday and I put everything he should need in his bag, but if you need to get something then let the neighbours know so they don’t think-“

“His bag? Where’s his bag?”

Costia looks around and realises. “Oh, still in the car. Want to wait here, or come and get it?”

“I’m parked over there too, we’ll come with you.”

They can at least be civil to each other now, she reflects, which is more than they managed in the closing stages of their time together, but being good parents to their son was the one thing they had continually agreed upon. It’s still a big adventure to him, shuttling from Mom to Ma and back again every week, and she hopes he keeps feeling that way about it. For now, she’s just glad to listen to his stories about daycare and friends’ birthday parties and hope that he’s as excited next week when she’ll reluctantly hand him back.

And for the week she has him, she doesn’t think about Clarke too much.

* * *

Clarke soon settles into her new routine and even begins to assemble a new life around it. Her job keeps her busy, but it’s the kind of activity she loves, where she gets to solve problems and still have time to work in the ER itself, never knowing what’s going to come through the door next. Her schedule gives her most Saturdays off, and she begins to look forward to the mornings. The running gets easier, and coffee after with Octavia and Raven is a reminder that she does have friends there to look out for her and help her, even if none of the dates they set her up with ever turn into anything meaningful.

And almost every Saturday, she sees Lexa and there’s some kind of acknowledgement of each other be it a quick ‘hi’, a nod, a quick wave of the hand or even a momentary smile, but never more than that. She wants to say more to her, but she doesn’t know if words from her will ever be welcome even if they’re the lengthy apologies she composes in her head, trying to explain why she let herself end the best relationship she ever had.

But every time she sees Lexa she can’t explain to herself why she did it, so how can she ever hope to explain it to her?

* * *

It’s a sunny day and spring has finally arrived in full force so Lexa decides that they can stay in the park after Costia hands Aden over. He’s at the age where she doesn’t have to help him with every piece of equipment he wants to play on, but she still needs to watch him constantly, if only to reassure herself that all will be fine.

She’s proud as she watches him bustling his way up the steps of the slide, easily getting into the correct sitting position and pushing himself down it. It’s only a small thing – the top of the slide Is lower than her eyeline – but the thrill on his face and the joy of his smile as he slides down makes her wish she’d got her phone out to capture the moment. All her attention is on him as he stands up at the bottom, so she doesn’t see the girl coming down it after him until it’s too late. She’s too eager to get going that she ignores her parents’ instruction to wait and she barrels straight into Aden’s back, pushing him forward face down onto the ground in front of Lexa.

* * *

“- and he just gives me that look - you know the middle-aged white guy look? – and goes ‘Doctor Reyes, blowing things up is not appropriate behaviour for this department’ so I have to point out that it’s _Professor_ Reyes, and that I’ve brought in more research grant money in the past year than he has in his entire career –“

There’s a sudden noise from the kids play area, the sort that drags Clarke’s attention away from Raven’s story. It’s a sudden shout, followed by a sudden hush that’s punctured by a couple of kids shrieking, another wailing and finally a “he’s bleeding, get some help” that kicks her into activity. She grabs her bag – Raven insists they have enough volunteers trained in first aid, but she comes prepared, just in case – and quickly heads off the café’s terrace and down to the play area.

She notes the soft rubberized surface of the play area beneath her feet and can hear the wailing of a hurt kid which is both heartbreaking in its raw pain but reassuring in the way it shows it’s not loss-of-consciousness serious. The professional part of her takes over and notes the situation: a young child who looks to be about three or four, sitting up and leaning back against a piece of play equipment, left hand instinctively cradling his right elbow while an adult in workout gear crouches by him, holding a balled up t-shirt to his head, the silver-grey of the shirt rapidly turning dark. The rest of her mind notes exactly who they are and asks why the universe has to do things like this.

She crouches down, getting herself close to his eye level before she talks. “Hey, I’m Clarke, I’m a doctor and I’m here to help you feel better. What’s your name?”

* * *

Lexa tries to keep herself calm as Clarke checks Aden over. She’s amazed at how calm and in control she is, talking to her and Aden throughout her examination, making sure they’re both all right with what she does, explaining what she’s looking for and reassuring Lexa that he’s going to be fine.

“He’s going to need stitches in that cut on his scalp, and I want to take a proper look at his elbow. It looks like it’s just going to be heavy bruising but I want to be sure. Are you OK to bring him to the ER?”

Lexa looks at her and then down at her hand which is still shaking. “I don’t know if I’m safe to drive.”

“Then we’ll take my car.”

Lexa agrees without really thinking, concerned for her son and confused by the woman who’s tending to him. In her mind, Clarke’s still young, still walking away from her at the airport with tears streaming down her face, and this woman looks and sounds just like her, but is also a calm and collected doctor, focused entirely on helping Aden. Lexa wants to say something on the journey, but as soon as they set off, Clarke’s dropped her phone into its holder to make a call.

“ER, how can I help?”

“Hey Harper, it’s Clarke.”

“Hi boss, what’s up?”

“How busy is it right now?”

“Pretty quiet, Friday night admission all moved on, no majors in progress.”

“Great, I’m with a friend, her son’s had an accident and needs stitches. Nothing serious, but can I have an exam room in about five minutes?”

“Of course. I’ll just check the board. I’ll hold number four for you, you can go straight in.”

“Thanks, I owe you one.”

“Great, I’ll put my vacation request in before I go home today.”

It feels surreal to Lexa. Aden’s clinging to her, but his wailing has retreated into occasional sobs, and when she looks down at him, she sees the white rectangle of the bandage Clarke put there, drying streaks of blood at the edges of it. She knew Clarke would become a doctor, but she’d always talked about how her mother wanted her to follow her into surgery, but now she’s taking charge in a crisis and whoever she just spoke to at the ER called her boss.

She thinks how much ten years have changed her, and wonders just what they’ve done to Clarke.

* * *

“Ok, now put your arm out straight for me and wiggle your fingers like this? That’s good, Aden, well done. Does it hurt?” He shakes his head, but his face is wincing slightly. “You sure? Not even a little?”

“Maybe…”

She smiles at him. “And where’s it hurting?” He uses his left hand to point to his right elbow. “You’re going to have a big bruise there, but it won’t hurt for too long. But if it does keep hurting, or feels like it hurts really bad, you tell your mom, right?”

“I’m not with Mom, I’m with Ma.” He gestures towards Lexa who’s waiting by the door to the exam room having what’s sounded like a stressful phone conversation.

“Cos, he’s going to be fine. It’s a couple of stitches and nothing’s broken. She’ll just tell you the same thing she told me. I’ll see.” She covers the bottom of the phone with her hand and looks at Clarke. “Would you mind?”

“Sure. You’ll have to hold it though.” Her hands are busy cleaning u around the scalp wound she’s stitched up, and checking the little cuts and scrapes around it. Lexa comes over to her and puts the phone on speaker. “Hi, this is Dr Griffin.”

“Please tell me, how serious is it? I mean, you don’t rush someone to the ER for a cut.”

“It’s not serious, it’s just a precaution. As I said to your wife-“

“Ex-wife.” It’s an instinctive correction, and Clarke’s very glad she’s not holding the phone as she might have dropped it.

 _Oh_ , the part of her brain that’s not at work thinks. The professional part reminds her to focus on her patient, keep talking and not look at Lexa, no matter how much she wants to.

* * *

Lexa turns down Clarke’s offer to drive them back when it’s all done, lying that Anya’s already on her way then sighing with relief when she replies to Lexa’s message to say she’s free. They wait in the lobby for her to arrive, and Lexa takes a moment to look at the noticeboard there. It looks new, in fact the whole space around her looks to have been recently painted and the chairs are also new and actually comfortable to sit in. The noticeboard has an array of photos on it and a glance shows it’s all the ER staff, not just doctors.

She looks down and spots familiar blue eyes about a third of the way down. _Dr Clarke Griffin, Head of Emergency Medicine_ , she reads.

“That’s Doctor Clarke, she fixed my head!” Aden exclaims, pointing at her picture.

“Yes she did. Did you say thank you?” He nods and squeezes in towards her.

* * *

“Clarke.” She turns when she hears her name, and sees Lexa standing right there. “I just wanted to say thank you for last week.”

“Just doing my job. How is he?”

“Absolutely back to normal. Well, he’s got a big bruise around his elbow but the daycare say he was telling the other kids that shows how strong he is and scaring them with tales of how big the needle you used to stitch him up was. Our doctor took them out on Thursday, she says there’ll be no scarring.”

Clarke smiles, their job is usually to patch patients up and move them on to someone else, so she doesn’t always get to know what becomes of them. “That’s good, he’s a great kid.”

“Thanks.” She moves as if to turn away, then stops herself. “Um, are you free after this? For coffee? Feels like we should catch up properly.”

It feels out of the blue, but she knows it’s also what she’s been hoping for, even if she couldn’t ask for it. “Yes, I will be. You’ll have to wait for me to finish, though.”

“I can do that.” Lexa says. “I’ll see you later, then.”

She tells herself it’s just coffee, but she still finds herself motivated to get to it as quickly as she can. “Still getting quicker, Griffin.” Raven says as she crosses the finish line.

* * *

“Before I forget, I have a present for you.” Lexa says, handing the envelope over to Clarke. She watches as she opens it, sliding out the card with Thank You Doctor Clarke on it in multi-coloured letters. “He insisted. I drew the letters, but he coloured them in.”

“Thank you. And say thank you to him for me, I’ll put it up in my office on Monday. You don’t have him this weekend?”

“We alternate, around a week each. He went back to Costia’s last night.”

“Has it been long since…?”

“About a year. It worked, until it didn’t.” Lexa says. “I think when we had Aden, we both realised we were giving him all of the love and attention because we had nothing left to give to each other.”

“Mine didn’t work, and then it really didn’t. No kids, obviously. And thankfully. Not against having them, but glad there’s nothing left tying me to him.”

“Then why did you-“

“Because he was there. Because it would shut my mother up for a time. Because I was a coward. Because I thought he was all I deserved.”

“Clarke, you don’t have to do this.”

“I do, though. I decided if I couldn’t be happy, I could at least try and make her happy. Then after it all ended I realised the one time in my life I’d been happy, it had been the one time I wasn’t doing what she wanted.”

“The one time?”

“Here. With you, obviously, but that whole time I was here. When I walked out, I joined Doctors Without Borders for a while, just to get away, then I saw the job here advertised and thought why not? I figured if I wasn’t ever going to be happy, I could at least do some good.”

Lexa tries not to look at Clarke. It’s a glorious day and they’ve found a bench to sit on that looks out over the park. She was expecting this to be awkward as they tried to reconnect, but she hadn’t counted on how much what had happened had affected Clarke, seemingly more than it had her.

“I genuinely thought you’d have moved on from here, I really wasn’t expecting to see you again.” She continues. “I thought you’d be on your way to running the world by now.”

“I still could be.” Lexa said. “Maybe you’re not the only one who wants to do some good here.”

“I’m just realising I don’t know what you do.” Clarke says. “Maybe we should have started there, though obviously you’ve seen me at work now.”

“You could have looked me up online.”

“That would have felt creepy. I’m assume it’s something in the law?”

“You’d be right.”

“Prosecutor? It’s what you always wanted.”

“Assistant DA.” Lexa says. “And hopefully losing the assistant part in a few years.”

“Wow. Good luck. That’s elected, right?”

“It is.”

“Well, you’ll get my vote.”

* * *

They talk about votes and jobs and which of their old college haunts are still going, and Clarke feels like she’s moved them away from the ravine she was pushing them towards, but everything she did still looms over her. Their conversation feels almost relaxed and natural, and that feels wrong to her.

“Lexa? Why don’t you hate me?” She regrets it as soon as she asks it, but putting it out there feels good too.

“Why should I hate you?”

“Because I ended it like I did. Because I broke your heart.”

“It sounds like you broke yours too.” Lexa says. “But I don’t hate you. I was angry with you, so so angry, frustrated that you wouldn’t talk to me, and I really didn’t like the you who did it, but I never hated you. I loved you too much to hate you.”

Lexa looks at her, but Clarke can’t look back and face that gaze.

“Clarke, I forgave you a long time ago, but I think you need to forgive yourself.”

“I wish I knew how to.” Clarke says.

“You’ll work it out.” Lexa says. “I think you’re on the right path.”

* * *

They start meeting every other Saturday, the weekends she doesn’t have Aden. It’s just coffee and talking about what they’ve been doing, or what Aden’s been doing, or how Clarke’s neighbour’s cat is trying to adopt her, all mixed in with complaining about patients and cases they have to deal with. Occasionally Clarke mentions something about her therapist and looks guilty, but Lexa encourages her to talk about it.

It feels like they’re becoming friends again, and Lexa knows that’s how it started last time. Back then they were young students with nothing in common who somehow made a connection that bloomed into so much more. Just like then she finds herself thinking of whether they can be more than friends again. The first time it had been an easy transition, and she knows that everything they are now makes it much more complicated than the easy collapse into each other it had been.

“Do you want to get dinner together sometime next week?” Lexa asks one day, as summer’s becoming a memory and it’s soon going to be too cold to sit outside.

“Yes.” Clarke says with a smile, and as she sees those blue eyes glint, Lexa thinks she can see happiness and a path through all the complications.

**Author's Note:**

> https://blah-de-blah-de-blah.tumblr.com/


End file.
